Symposium: Science, Identity, and Ethnicity

Date: 

Thursday, April 24, 2014, 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Location: 

William James Hall, Room 1550

"Science, Identity, and Ethnicity: States and Citizens in Global Knowledge Regimes"

A two-day interdisciplinary symposium, free and open to the public. For up-to-date details on the schedule and free registration, please visit: www.scienceidentityethnicity.eventbrite.com

Co-sponsored by the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Kennedy School of Government, the Committee on African Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of African and African-American Studies, and the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University.

With recent advances in the biosciences, such as second-generation genomic sequencing, advanced techniques in assisted conception, and the prediction of inheritable diseases, many aspects of individual identities— from ethnicity to genealogy to disease susceptibility— have been problematized. DNA is now being “read” by scientists to articulate a molecular basis for many historical and social phenomena, such as individuals’ membership in ethnic or national groups, as well as renewing older concerns about social control of populations through genetics. But what do these new kinds of genetic readings do for states and their citizens? To what extent have the genetic sciences expanded or circumscribed the ways of authorizing ethnic and national belonging? How has research in population genetics and human biogeography affected legal and political rights to citizenship, and territorial disputes? Are biological sciences, technologies, and society entangled to the point of being co-produced, and if so in what ways? This symposium tackles these questions from a global perspective, with the hope of fostering dialogue across disciplinary divides and geographical regions.